


The Stars Miss You Too

by Poison_writes



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale uncovers Crowleys past, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Beta Read, Stargazing, To make up for the last one, and little bit of his own too, im just puting some headcanons together, lot of dialogue, no beta we die like man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 02:11:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19843390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poison_writes/pseuds/Poison_writes
Summary: He has been preparing himself for this moment for good few centuries. He knew Aziraphale would find out eventually. Considering how much in touch he was with his former co – archangel, Gabriel. He would have let his mouth loose. Or maybe it could have been Beelzebub who always wanted to cause Crowley some inconvenience and could just spill the secret to the angel in order to do so. He imagined Aziraphale would freak out. Maybe yell at him about how irresponsible he was. Maybe he would be disgusted seeing how even the highest and purest of angels can be rotten. He tried to play out every negative scenario possible in his mind over and over so he would feel at least a bit prepared. He knew it was going to hurt, but maybe he would manage to lower it. It didn’t work.AKAAziraphale figures out something about his partner he should have known long time ago. They talk. They sort things out.





	The Stars Miss You Too

**Author's Note:**

> Also I just wanna say that English is NOT my first language and I sincerely apologise for any mistakes (and mixing British and American english because I have hard time realizing which is which ;-;).

Crowley owed Aziraphale a picnic for quite some time. So that’s what they were doing. Except Crowley’s, in his opinion excellent, idea was to go at night. Because it was summer and still warm and they could go stargazing. Crowley had always enjoyed doing so, and he knew it was sentimental enough for Aziraphale to enjoy it too. It was a good thing they both had much better sight than regular human being, otherwise they wouldn’t see anything over all the lights of London city.

“That right there is the Big Dipper. Or Ursa Major, the Great Bear,” Crowley pointed his arm towards a next constellation. Aziraphale was laying down on his lap, listening carefully to whatever Crowley was talking about. He was pretty sure Aziraphale knew all the stories, but listened anyway. “It is one of very few constellations mentioned in the Bible, in old Testament. The stories behind it vary from each culture, but almost always they are about unhappy love. Love that the gods didn’t want to allow. For example, in Chinese tradition tells the story of celestial virgin, who fell in love with humble yet fair farmer. She came down to earth for him, married him, they had children and seemed to live happily ever after. Until her mother noticed one of her daughters is missing. Furious, she came searching after her. When she found her, she gave her two options: return to heaven with her or stay and witness her husband, children and all of the village get destroyed. I’m sure you can imagine what she chose. The farmer was mortified to find he had lost what was most precious to him. However, his buffalo, his oldest friend, told him that if he would kill him and wear his skin, he could go rescue his wife. At first he hesitated, but then he did as suggested. He took his children and went to take back what was his. The empress noticed them however, took a pin out of her hair and split sky in two with river that would always separate the lovers. The river is the Milky Way, of course, and Ursa Mayor is farmer with his children wanting to meet the love of his life again, but never being able to.”

“That’s very sad,” said Aziraphale.

“Yeah, most of human mythology is. Especially when it comes to starts. I suppose it’s because they are so out of reach, as most of things that people expect from life.” He stroke the angel’s face gently as he spoke, drawing small circles on his cheek with his thumb. It felt good, it felt natural. Being close to Azirapahale, suddenly once he was allowed to, came like breathing to him. He has grown more comfortable in their relationship, and he was happy to see Aziraphale did too. Sure, things were moving a bit too slow to Crowley’s taste, but that didn’t matter, as long as his angel was not uneasy with anything they were doing.

“You know a lot about astrology.”

“’S just common knowledge.”

“Chinese mythology? No, I don’t think so.” Aziraphale shook his head a little.

“Maybe so,” Crowley shrugged, “maybe I’m little too interested in this. I just want to see how are they doing without me.”

“Who? The stars?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you mean?”

“I, uh, helped making them,” Crowley said quietly and the sound of it was so small Aziraphale almost didn’t hear.

“But the stars were created by Gabriel and Raphael, alongside with God,” he opposed.

“Well, everyone needs a little help sometimes.”

And it made sense. And Aziraphale didn’t question anything any longer. At least not in the moment. 

Crowley pushed his head out of his lap gently and lied down next to him. Their hands brushed against each other. Crowley waited for Aziraphale to take it. And he did.

“Did we meet before? In heaven,” the angel asked suddenly and Crowley tensed up a little.

“No, I don’t think so,” Crowley lied. And that hurt, that hurt more than anything. Part of Falling, part of the punishment was that every memory of him was whipped out from other angel’s mind. They still remembered that there was this angel some when somewhere and he probably still is there, but every conversation, every interaction he ever had with anyone who didn’t fall suddenly didn’t exist. And that was the only thing he truly regretted.

It was quiet again and Aziraphale was quite comfortable with it. Crowley wasn’t. He was thinking. His past was something he closed in his mind long, long time ago and never dared to open. Now it was coming back. 

“Crowley?”

“Hm?”

“Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?”

The demon snorted. “If you use this pick up line one more time I’m probably going to murder you.”

“No, I meant it literally,” Aziraphale snapped.

“Oh.” Seemed to be the only thing Crowley was going to answer.

“Sorry, that was a bit harsh. It’s okay if you are not ready to talk-“

“No, no, it’s fine,” Crowley shook his head. “You just surprised me, ‘s all.” He was quiet again for a few moments. “It burned.”

“I always wanted to know what it felt like,” Aziraphale turned to his side so he could face Crowley better. “I used to think that I would fall too, for being in love with you, you know. I just though I just prepare for whatever it would bring me. But I never find the courage to ask you.”

“Well, I don’t think you are going to fall now. Do you still want to know?”

Aziraphale thought about it for a moment. “Yes,” he said then.

“It does hurt. Your mind is on fire, because you know exactly what is happening. You are perfectly aware of every inch of your being burning and you know you brought this upon yourself.” The coldness in his voice made Aziraphale shiver. He couldn’t tell if he was scared or saddened by his tone. “The worst of it though are the wings. It feels like every single feather is being torn away from you and new ones grow in their place and it hurts, sure, but the most painful is that it doesn’t feel the same. They are your wings but they feel foreign. And when it stops hurting, physically, that’s what you are left with. Feeling like an alien to yourself. And everything is misplaced.”

Aziraphale felt as he was about to cry. Instead he pulled Crowley in for a hug. It was a little awkward but that wasn’t what mattered at that point. “I’m sorry, love, I’m sorry you had to go through that.” 

“It’s okay,” Crowley said but still wrapped his arms around Aziraphale and breathed in the familiar scent. It was comforting. “It was a long time ago.”

…

On second thoughts, Aziraphale probably should have stayed in his bookshop, calm down and breathe through the revelation that just occurred to him. Then and only then he should have gone to Crowley’s flat and ask him if he was ready to talk about it. Instead he had probably miracle himself into his friends flat (that, or went through manic chase after every type of public transport in London just to get him to his friends as fast as possible and then unlocked the doors with spare pair of keys he owned, he couldn’t exactly remember).

He heard muffled noises from the back of Crowley’s flat which he quickly realized was him talking to his plants. “This is not too bad,” he could hear as he was approaching the room. “Oh, wait,” if Azirahale wasn’t so stressed out and shocked by what he had just figured out his heart would ache over the poor plants. “Is this leaf getting brown, or am I wrong?” he chuckled, it was dark and threatening and most of all utterly fake. “Of course I’m not. I never am.” He would have gone on to scold them, but he heard a knock on his door. He wasn’t surprised, he somehow sensed his friend coming in. 

“Angel, I appreciate your visit, but I was kind of in the middle of something,” he smiled nervously. He hasn’t had the chance to notice how pale Aziraphale looked before he turned back to his plants.

“Raphael,” the angel muttered under his breath.

“What was that?” Crowley raised an eyebrow and took a step forward. He wanted to calm his partner somehow maybe set a hand on his shoulder or something like that. He seemed very upset and that sure brought up a lot of worry in the demon.

“You are Raphael.”

Crowley wasn’t able to finish his movements. He froze and blinked a few times. He felt light in his head as if he was going to faint. His pair of snake eyes met the blue ones across the room desperately searching for whatever emotion they might reflect. Was his angel mad at him? Was he pitying him? Was he disgusted? He felt all of his fears and insecurities about his past crawl to surface. They quickly made home in his mind and his guts. He felt like he was about to vomit. He took two steps back and felt heavily into his chair.

In the matter of seconds Aziraphale realized how insensitive this has been. His mind was suddenly clear again as if he was awoken from some sort of trans. He quickly dropped on his knees in front of Crowley and took his hands into his. “Oh darling, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have just dumped that on you. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m so sorry.”

He continued apologizing not even thinking about what he was saying until Crowley cut in. His voice was trembling. “Who told you?” It sounded hurt, it sounded terrified.

“Ah, no one. I just, I was just thinking about what we talked about the other day, you know, on the pick nick and, and,” he stuttered. Good God, he really should have thought this through. Knowing Crowley for so long he should have known how hard this sort of conversations were for him.

“Oh, good, that’s good,” the demon murmured under his breath, absent minded. His brain went black, or maybe it was more like white noise. He has been preparing himself for this moment for good few centuries. He knew Aziraphale would find out eventually. Considering how much in touch he was with his former co – archangel, Gabriel. He would have let his mouth loose. Or maybe it could have been Beelzebub who always wanted to cause Crowley some inconvenience and could just spill the secret to the angel in order to do so. He imagined Aziraphale would freak out. Maybe yell at him about how irresponsible he was. Maybe he would be disgusted seeing how even the highest and purest of angels can be rotten. He tried to play out every negative scenario possible in his mind over and over so he would feel at least a bit prepared. He knew it was going to hurt, but maybe he would manage to lower it. It didn’t work. “Are you gonna leave now?” he chocked out.

“I’m sorry, dear, do you want me to?”  
“Of course not,” Crowley said. “I just, ah, I need a drink,” he shot up to his legs a bit too quickly almost knocking Aziraphale over and marched to the kitchen.

He opened the liquor cabinet and his hand automatically raised towards wine. He shook his head and took a whiskey bottle instead. He poured himself a good half a glass. There was ice in it, simply because there had to be ice in Crowley’s whiskey. Aziraphale followed him slowly almost as if he was unsure if he was allowed to. 

“I know I crossed some boundary-,” the angel tried to apologize again. Crowley didn’t let him.

“Was,” he said, his tone stir and cold.

“What?”

“I’m not Raphael, I was Raphael,” Crowley explained. He could feel his angel starting to build up another apology, so he continued. “You have every right to know about this. I’m sorry I overreacted.” With alcohol burning down his throat everything seemed a little less tragic. Plus, Aziraphale wasn’t reacting as any of his imaginative scenarios had predicted. “I, uh, angel, do you want to talk about it?” he suggested not sure yet whichever it was a stupid idea.

“I suppose,” Aziraphale nodded slowly, “Only if you are comfortable with it.”

Crowley was not. But he felt like he owed this to his partner. They had known each other for quite some time and this secret was a bit too big. He was wondering if he should tell him about the other thing too. About Aziraphale’s lost memories.

They sat down next to each other, but even before they started to talk properly they already ended up cuddled up to each other. Crowley’s head was resting on his angel’s chest. The fear of even bringing up the short period of time before his fall has disappeared. He felt like he could get this off his chest. “You have to ask me though; I don’t know where to begin.”

“Okay, ah, why have you never told me?”

“I didn’t want you to be, you know,” he was unsure how to put his thoughts and fears into words, “upset, or disgusted.”

Aziraphale’s heart would skip a beat. If it was beating in first place. “Why would I be disgusted?”

“Because, I don’t know,” he let out a deep sigh, “I’m not what I used to be.”

“Darling,” he said and hid voice was so soft, as it always was whenever he used any sort of pet name on Crowley, it made the demon melt each time. “You should really know by now that I don’t love you despite or because of your past. I love you and this is just a thing that comes with you so I just have to accept it. I could never be disgusted by you. If anything, knowing this made me love you even more.”

“Why?”

Aziraphale gently took his demon’s chin with his hands and made him look in his eyes. Crowley couldn’t help but notice how softly the angel’s gaze was, he always looked at him with so much adoration and love in his eyes. Sometimes, when he was drunk, it made him cry. “Because I always knew you were special, and now I know just a little bit more why.”

Crowley let out a sound that should have probably been “okay,” but turned out to be just a whine. He buried his face in the others chest again. Stupid angel isn’t going to make him cry this time.

“Does it bother you? That you used to be an Archangel and now you are just a regular demon? I don’t know about you but ranking matters to angels a lot.”

“No, not really, I mean it used to,” he confessed, “but I guess I figured that ranking was useless for me in heaven in the end, so I decided I wouldn’t go after that in hell.”

“I still don’t think you belong among them, my dear,” Aziraphale said quietly now running his fingers through Crowley’s hair. 

“Then you know me too little,” Crowley grinned. The fact that his angel though so high of him was both, flattering and scary.

Aziraphale didn’t object. This was sort of a game for them, whenever he told Crowley he believed he was a good person, the demon would dismiss him. It was a dance they both knew steps to. Aziraphale knew that deep down, Crowley believed him.

“I lied,” said Crowley after a little while of silence.

“About what?” Aziraphale flinched under his weight. 

“The other night, you asked me if we met before I fell, I said no.” He could feel Aziraphale shift under him. He had to explain quickly before his angel would get mad. “I didn’t mean to lie, I swear. I was just scared you wouldn’t believe me. Or it would be too complicated to explain.”

“I believe you, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, his voice soft, calm and quiet. It was absolutely sincere, Crowley knew that.

“We met, we talked, quite a few times actually. You were supposed to be my new right hand. Before that could happen it all went downhill. You don’t remember me. No one that knew me before the fall and didn’t fall as well remembers. It’s sort of punishment. Or pre caution.”

Aziraphale blinked a few times and took a deep breath. Whatever Crowley was saying it could have been true. He had sort of blurry image in his mind. He met an archangel, yes. One that was neither Michael or Gabriel. He remembered long hair and soft understanding voice that made you feel like nothing ever could go wrong. He remembered sort of kindness that he has never see from any other bosses he came in contact with. It was a distant memory he never paid too much attention to. It was long time ago, it was unimportant and most of all it felt like dream he couldn’t quite make sense of.

“I liked you,” Crowley continued, “you weren’t so hesitant to talk to me. Lot of other angels seemed a little, I don’t know, scared? I suppose they viewed me as authority too high to mess with. Not you though, you were friendly.”

“I think I remember, something,” Aziraphale mumbled under his breath. He felt a bit dizzy. “My head hurts from thinking about it.”

Crowley shifted in his position so he would face the angel better. “Don’t think about it too much.” He put his hands on the other’s face and rubbed his temples gently. “There, this should do.”

Aziraphale felt the headache fade away. “What was that?” But then he immediately remembered. Raphael – patron saint of healing.

“You can still do that?” he gasped in surprise. 

“Yeah,” Crowley said and it sounded just a little bit ashamed. “I just couldn’t do it that much anymore, Hell would notice. I don’t think that matters anymore now.”

Neither of them knew what to say anymore, so they just laid there wrapped in each other’s arms for a while.

“Thank you for sharing this with me,” Aziraphale said finally.

Crowley didn’t say anything. But he felt thankful too.


End file.
